154 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



thr^e of chapter one hundred and sixteen of the acts of the year 

 nineteen hundred and two : provided^ however^ that nothing in this 

 act shall be construed to permit the sale, offer for sale, or keeping 

 with intent to sell, for food, of meat infected in any degree with 

 tuberculosis or any other disease. 



An intelligent modern system of meat inspection is in- 

 tended to prevent the sale of meat infected in any degree 

 with tuberculosis or any other disease. At the meeting of the 

 Eastern Live Stock Sanitary Association at Si3ringfield in 

 May the following resolution was passed : — 



Whereas, certain States condemn the flesh of animals that are 

 found on post mortem to be affected with slight or localized tuber- 

 culosis, thereby causing the loss of many carcasses that would 

 be passed as sound and fit for food by the federal meat inspection 

 service, and that it is admitted by all of the best sanitary authorities 

 to be entirely safe and free from objection : therefore, be it Re- 

 solved, that measures should be taken to protect the public from 

 foods that contain the germs of bovine tuberculosis; such germs 

 enter the milk from the secretion of cows in certain stages of the 

 disease, and are found in meat only when the disease has progressed 

 beyond a certain stage of development. The extent of the disease 

 in the living animal cannot be determined with accuracy, hence 

 any cow that has reacted to the tuberculin test should not be used 

 for market milk production unless the milk is adequately pas- 

 teurized. The extent of the disease in slaughtered animals can be 

 exactly determined on post-mortem examination, and the carcass 

 of an animal infected with tubei-culosis should be disposed of in 

 accordance with the condition found; that is, if the location and 

 extent of the lesions are such as to denote the possibility that the 

 edible parts of the carcass may be infected or contaminated, the 

 carcass should be rejected. On the other hand, hoAvever, if the dis- 

 ease is of slight or local development, so that all of the possibly 

 contaminated parts or infected organs may be removed, the carcass 

 should not be condemned, but should be passed for use as pure food 

 after the destruction of such parts. To condemn and destroy the 

 entire carcass of slightly or locally infected animals is unjustifiable 

 on any rational sanitary basis, and it is an economic crime. Regu- 

 lations for inspecting and passing on the carcasses of animals 

 infected with tuberculosis similar to those of the federal meat in- 

 spection service are quite sufficient, and are recommended. 



The framers of section 1, chapter 329, Acts of 1908, did not 

 intend it to have the effect it did. It was intended, among 



